Foundation Offering Non-Traditional Student Scholarships

The Washington County Community Foundation is now offering scholarships to non-traditional students through its Education Matters initiative.

Education Matters is a regional undertaking organized by the community foundations that serve Washington, Scott, Harrison, Clark and Floyd counties to try to increase the number of working adults in our region start but never completed some form of post-secondary education – education that extends beyond high school.

You might be surprised to learn that in Southern Indiana, only 25 percent of our workforce has an associate’s, bachelors or professional degree – compared to 38 percent nationally.

“Yet one in four of our community’s adult workers has earned some college credits,” said Lindsey Wade-Swift, of the WCCF. “That’s over 3100 in Washington County. For whatever reason they started but never completed their post-secondary education. This represents a tremendous amount of untapped potential in our community.”

The community foundations that created Education Matters, have elected to concentrate on a small sliver of the overall issue, those one in four of our adult workers who have some post-secondary credits but did not complete their degrees or certifications.

This population of people who started but didn’t finish their education is where the Washington County Community Foundation sees opportunity to implement immediate changes that can drive our educational attainment numbers up, ultimately having real impact on our community, said Wade-Swift.